Politics & Culture

Every day when I wake up, I fumble for my phone right from bed so I can check The New York Times and get a grip on reality. When I woke up last week and saw that the pope was resigning, I thought I’d lost that grip. Everything I thought I knew about Catholicism — where tradition is tradition is tradition — was upended.

It didn’t take long to tumble down the endless chute that is the papal succession obsession. What did it mean that the pope would resign at such a tumultuous point? Who would be the next pope? What country would he be from? What kind of changes would he make? …

Thursday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act caused a lot of stir among Americans. Even Catholics were split on the issue. One priest tweeted, “What’s nxt? Will the government tell us we have to buy a car now, house, etc.? Let’s frame this the gov’t is forcing people to buy a product.” Another priest tweeted, “#gratefultweet This morning I am especially grateful that the poor and vulnerable may be better cared for in this wealthy nation.”

May 20, 1988, a mentally ill women named Laurie Dann walked into Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, Illinois, armed with three handguns and shot one boy in a washroom then entered my classroom. She opened fire on us, small children taking a test about bicycle safety. She killed one boy by the name of Nicholas Corwin and wounded four others before departing to a nearby home, shooting an adult who lived there, and then taking her own life. That day back in May 1988, everyone in Winnetka was a victim, everyone in the nation was a victim, and the country stopped for a moment of silence.